Last year the enterprising booksellers at Eagle Harbor Book Company on Bainbridge Island, WA, realized that they could produce their own books and have them printed at their fellow booksellers’ Book Making Machine. After talking about the details with their colleagues at Village Books in Bellingham, WA (a world away in NW terms), Eagle Harbor’s staff decided to start their self-publishing program with a book of limericks celebrating Bainbridge Island. So, they held a contest. They received a pile of limericks, and published 50 copies of From Bad to Verse: Celebrating Three Years of Bainbridge Island Limericks. They sold out. They ordered another 50 copies and sold out. Should they print more? Would you buy a book of collected limericks about Bainbridge Island? Really? OK, well, maybe this first effort has a limited market, but you get the idea. One of these days EHBC is going to publish a true Bestseller. It’s inevitable. Mark these words. Can you say “Northwest City Lights?” It’s all about the ideas.
Borrowed Copy
From Bad to Verse: Eagle Harbor's Limericks
September 4, 2010
— posted by
Thom